When The Dust Settles

A month goes by quickly and I’ve experienced so much these past weeks that I have been unable to bring myself to write a public post. Every feeling felt too raw, every decision too fleeting, and reason was nowhere to be found.

As is life though, everything eventually starts to settle, at least until the next ride. I’ve had a hard time defining the heart of this post because there is so much that I’d like to share but still too in the midst of it all to be clear, so hang in there with me if subjects veer in multiple directions.

The most prevalent thought as I sit here and write this is the following phrase: the loss of a possibility. I’ve faced quite the internal battle in extrapolating what I want vs. attaching myself to a possibility that I did not want to give up. The more attached we are to a possibility, the more blurry it becomes in recognizing the difference between attachment and what is innately calling us, especially if that calling pulls us away from our attachment.

We hold on because we don’t want to mourn that loss of a possibility. In order to avoid feeling the ickiness that comes with loss, in this case the loss of a possibility, we latch on to something that doesn’t serve us, something that we don’t really want, something that is making us more unhappy than happy.

The fear of that loss is so overwhelming that we stick with the potential of the possibility – of how things could be, of how we could feel. Except, the reality of the situation is that it’s not ‘what it could be,’ it is simply what it is. Potential is not the reality of the now, and it may not ever be the reality of the future.

The rational thing, then, is to make decisions based off of our realistic circumstances and not based off of a potential, no matter how likely or unlikely we think that potential may come to fruition.

Yet, there is a theme that I see not only in myself, but in many other people, where we tend to marry attachment and possibility and allow it to guide our decisions, even when it means enduring stress and anguish.

We don’t want to sever a possibility or an attachment for our own selfish reasons (we don’t want to hurt), but in many cases we also don’t want to sever it because we don’t want to hurt others. We don’t want to be the ‘bad guy,’ a reason which we can ultimately be said is about us and not others.

So, we continue to play out our situation without altering it, because altering it, after all, would mean endangering the possibility. We focus on protecting our attachment and possibility, even when we’ve lost touch as to why we are doing so. It becomes a habit.

Habits are comfortable, they are reliable, they happen instinctively…so are attachments. It’s hard enough to break a habit; it’s even more difficult to break an attachment that you’ve had for years, sometimes even just months.

Breaking an attachment requires changing your behavior, disrupting your routine, placing that energy into something new, and most painful of all, it means emotionally detaching from something or someone. It means letting go and moving on.

When the possibility is not ready to let you go, you begin to question your decision to leave it behind. You slip back into habit, where the shoes of attachment are so comforting that you don’t want to step out again. It’s an instantaneous quicksand that sucks you back in and it takes all of your will to break out of it once more.

It’s difficult, but we break attachments and we sever possibilities because we don’t want to remain in a circumstance out of attachment. We want to remain in a circumstance because it is good for our mind and soul, because it assists us in becoming a better person, because it is cloaked in healthy love, because it adds to our lives instead of weighing us down.

And, ultimately we free ourselves from an attachment and let go of a possibility, because we know that it isn’t what we want and as long as we continue to delay our break from something that isn’t working, we are postponing the welcoming of something that will fulfill us at the level we desire.